


Episode 4

by Celticas



Series: Hidden Valkyrie [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AoS Seaon 1 Re-write, AoS season 1, F/M, Genius Skye, Not Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, OFC - Freeform, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2020-11-01 11:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Akela Amador doesn't know what's coming for her.





	1. Chapter 1

Skye was hiding from Ward, she had taken refuge with May in the cockpit and the older woman was pointing at various pieces of equipment and explaining their uses. Some were familiar to Skye, she had just started learning how to fly the Quinjet, while some were completely different. She had her laptop open on her lap was it had gone to sleep from disuse, her attention caught by the impromptu lesson. The soft murmur of their conversation was interrupted by the by a video lighting up her screen.

It was of a square somewhere in Europe. As they watched a large group of men in business suits and bright red masks came marching down a set of stairs and into the squares, perfectly in step and lined up in pairs. A weird facsimile of a primary school class on their way to recess.

“What is this?” May asked, watching over Skye’s shoulder.

“I don’t know…”

The video followed the men through the square and watched as they disappeared into a subway station. The video they were watching ended and instantly another one started up. It was on the subway station. Whoever was filming followed the group onto a train. Once on board, the men spread themselves evenly across the carriage and just  _ stood there _ . Just as Skye thought the video was going to end, the screen went dark, but it was still running. Screams broke out in what had been an unnaturally quiet inner-city train. When the lights came back on the viewpoint of the video had changed, now whoever it was, was crouched in the corner of the carriage low to the ground. All of the men were unconscious, or dead Skye couldn’t tell, on the ground. In the middle of the group one of the men was dead, his eyes staring unseeing just to the right of the camera. His hand severed at the wrist and the case that had been attached gone.

“What the hell was that?” Skye mumbled to herself as she dived into the code that had brought the video to her attention. “They were from facebook.” She told may as she typed. “One of my programs flagged it. Someone was in it that I was trying to find.” She pulled the video up again. “There.” She froze the video on the image of a mid-thirties African-American woman. “Akela Amador. She’s in bed with Hydra.”

“Akela Amador?” May asked, surprised.

“Yeah, why?”

“She was a SHIELD Agent, we thought she died more than a decade ago. Where was this?” May was already running the whys and wherefores of the situation.

“Stockholm. Sweden.”

May reset the guidance system and put the plane in auto-pilot.

“We have to tell Coulson.” May led Skye out of the cockpit. “Set that up in the Command Centre.”

May found Coulson in the cargo hold, talking to Ward.

“Coulson. Skye found something you are going to want to see.” May said from the catwalk, looking down on the other two agents. Seeing them walking towards the stairs she silently slipped back through the plane to where she had left Skye.

Skye in the meantime had transferred the videos onto the SHIELD system and started searching for answers. By the time Coulson, Ward and May re-joined her she had the videos queued up on the large, wall-mounted monitor, and several other documents open and spread across the touch screen table.

“What’s going on?” Coulson asked stepping into the small room.

“Just watch.” Skye started the video. She could feel the looks of confusion and then concern from the two men.

“What did we just watch?” Coulson was the first to speak after the two videos had played through.

“It was a diamond heist. The latest in a string of them that has netted more than 30 million dollars’ worth of stones.” Skye explained, throwing police reports from Milan and Monte Carlo up beside the one from Stockholm. “This woman is responsible.” A photo of Amador joined the growing pile of paperwork. “I have a friend who has come across her before, she followed him while he was doing some work in Myanmar a few years ago.”

Skye watched Coulson’s face as she talked, his expression travelled through a range of emotions, from confused to concerned, back to confused and landing on sort of angry and sort of sad.

“Akela Amador, she was one of my agents until she was declared KIA in 2006.” Coulson said softly, regret loud in his voice.

“I’m sorry. But people change and whatever she had been in since isn’t good though.” Skye closed out of the documents she had displayed, leaving the screens on their screensavers of a moving map. 

“May, take us to Sweden. Skye figure out how she did it.” His voice was hard, unforgiving. Betrayal wasn’t something he took lightly and from what Skye had presented it looked like he was in for a good dose of it in the next few days.

“Done.” May confirmed the order. “ETA four hours.”

“Will do A.C..” Skye bent over her keyboard.

Coulson retreated to his office, needing some time to get his mind in order. Slumping onto the couch on the side of the room, he cradled the frame from his desk between gentle hands. The photo just visible in the dim light. He hadn’t bothered to turn the overhead light on and the only illumination came from the small desk lamp he hadn’t turn off earlier.

The man in the photo smiled up at him. Eyes twinkling in the sun on that beautiful day, a day that had changed his life in so many ways while also changing nothing at all. Coulson didn’t know where the other man was, didn’t know if his attempt to reach out had succeeded, it was too early to know yet. But he did know the reminder of the love in the other man’s face was always enough to brighten even the worst day.

For a long time, he sat in the half dark and allowed him mind to wander, just trying not to think about those missions where he had lost someone, where he had failed, instead focusing on the times things had gone right, when everyone had come home in one piece.

With his mind better focused and feeling more able to handle whatever new crisis Skye had dug out of the shadows, he carefully replaced the photo and re-joined the world outside his office door. A glance at the clock on the way out told him he had wasted 45 minutes brooding. That wasn’t good enough. He was a Senior Agent of SHIELD, the Director’s Good Eye. He needed to have his shit together better then this.

It took a bit, and asking Ward, to find Skye. The hacker had shut herself in the unlit backseat of the SUV.

“Have you found anything?” Coulson asked.

“I was thinking, the first videos were from social media right? So, with Freya’s help I targeted a couple bits of software to try and identify other photos and videos from Stockholm that had Amador in them. Then using the files’ metadata I stitched them all together and lay it over a map of the city, trying to find where she came from and where she went.” She looked at him from her position wedged back seat of the car. At his nod of understanding she continued. “Right. She arrived in Stockholm by train at the Central Station, not sure from where still looking for that, earlier that morning. From there she pretty much went straight to Sergel’s Square. After the heist I lost her for a bit, picked her up again in the background of a tourist snap at the Bromma Airport. Not sure what flight she got on.”

“Focus on where she went.” He hesitate before asking his next question, not sure if he wanted to hear what she had to say. “Any clue about why her eyes were closed?”

“My only thought is way outside the box.” She paused, letting him decide if he wanted to hear it.

“I live outside the box.” He watched her levelly having decided that he wanted her answer he was now committed to hearing it.

“There are people in the world with superpowers, right? What if Amador has ESP?” She could see the second his mind slammed shut. It was all in the disappearance of the sparkle in his eye. “Just hear me out. She couldn’t have hacked the system, it wasn’t kept digitally. Also when she was following my friend? He lost her, a couple of times, but she kept finding him. Like she knew where he was gonna be. Huh?” Both of her eye brows rose in enquiry.

“Or she is a trained SHIELD Agent and your friend never lost her. And what was your friend doing that someone would want to follow him?” Coulson lent against the open window. A slightly mocking smile cracking his face.

“Yeah, ok. But if she turns out to have ESP or something, I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’.” She quipped, putting her nose in the air jokingly.

“Noted. And so do I.” Coulson laughed. “Figure out where she went.” He threw over his shoulder as he left.

May was circling the air above Sweden by the time Skye picked up Akela’s trail. She hadn’t been confident she could do it, last time they had run across each other Skye had lost her in the technological blackspots of Sittwe. It was a stroke of luck that Akela walked through the back of a news segment being filmed in Minsk about the upcoming Yuri Bashmet International Music Festival. It was sloppy. Did she want to get caught? Or was she in such a hurry to do something that she was making mistakes? Skye wasn’t sure and in the end it didn’t matter. They were going to stop her.

Skye tumbled out of the SUV and hurried upstairs. She found Coulson in the lounge reading an honest to god manila folder with ‘eyes only’ printed in bright red across its front. Beside him there was a large pile of similarly adorned files.

“Belarus.” She said without preamble.

Coulson set aside his file and hit the comm to the cockpit. 

“I have her in Minsk but I don’t think that’s her final destination.” She continued after he had finished talking to May. She perched on the arm of the armchair, balancing her laptop on her knees.

Coulson grumbled at the shoes on the furniture so with an exaggerated eye roll she toed them off without looking away from her screen.

“Hmm.” He was sort of satisfied with the move. “It will take 45 minutes to get to Belarusian airspace, try and find her by the time we get there.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” She threw a lazy salute at his back, still without turning her attention away from the lines of code she was typing one handed.


	2. Chapter 2

Skye was sitting in a panel van of all things. She felt like they were on their way to kidnap someone… which they might end up doing…. She was sharing the back seat with Simmons and a metric shit tonne of equipment. Up front Ward was driving, and Coulson was directing, mostly by pointing out the turn five seconds later then was appropriate.

“How exciting! I’ve dreamed of visiting Zloda since I was a schoolgirl.” Simmons sighed drawing Skye’s attention away from Coulson’s questionable directing technique.

“What sort of schoolgirl dreams of coming to Zloda. Before today I hadn’t even heard of it?” Skye’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“It’s the birthplace of Nobel physicist Zhores Alferov.” The smile starting to fade from Jemma’s face. If Fitz was here instead of back on the Bus with May, he would have shared her excitement. 

“Wasn’t he born in Vitebsk?” Skye asked. She  _ had  _ heard of Zhores Alferov.

Coulson and Simmons turned to gape at her in shock, if Ward wasn’t such a conscientious driver he probably would be too.

“What? I know things! His semiconductor fabrication method is being used for epitaxy research for nanotechnology.” Skye pouted at them all.

Skye’s demonstration of knowledge brought Jemma’s smile back full force.

“There is a statue of him in Vitebsk, I wonder if we will have time…” Simmons drifted off, still not used to having to finish her sentences.

“You are only here to search for Amador electronically. You won’t even need to leave the van.” Coulson said without turning from his map.

Ward eventually pulled the van to a stop on the edge of the country road.

“If Amador is here, she’ll have to contact her buyer. Scan for cell phone transmissions, encrypted emails, anomalous broadcast signatures. Call us if you find anything that indicated her presence.” Coulson lay out their end of the mission, again, before following Ward out of the van. The two older agents were quickly lost in the trees on the other side of the road. 

= + =

Skye scrambled gracelessly over the seat and into the mini command centre they had wired into the van. Monitors were spread across on wall and boxes of equipment against the other. All told it didn’t leave much room to manoeuvre but once she was within reach of the keyboard, she was golden.

Although Simmons had never watched her work before, it was oddly nice to have the other woman’s eyes on her. Skye was so used to working with James or Violet breathing down her neck, it was a good reminder of how things had been. Skye wasn’t sure when Jemma had moved into the mental file of ‘friendly’ but at some point, she had. 

“Found a server.” Skye muttered, not really  _ to  _ Simmons, more just to acknowledge it. “Stupid, come on, stabilize.” She continued to mumble and grumble at the computer. When it finally connected, she legit fist pumped. “Yes. Let’s try and clear this up…”

The channel was mirrored onto one of the large wall-monitors while she scrolled through the metadata and encryptions. Tweaking a numeral there and a denominator there. The image slowly resolving into a moving image of a tree lined street. 

With the image stabilised, Skye sat back and together they watched as a small white van grew in size. The bright day stuttered and changed to a greyscale image of the van, but it was almost see through.

“The hell?” Skye muttered, reaching for the keyboard. Maybe the encryptions had cycled and partially kicker her off the frequency? Going back through the code it was exactly as she had left it, full access and recording on both the Bus server and her own.

Looking closer at the image, one of the figures move at the same time she did.

“The hell?” She repeated. Standing up, she watched as the figure on the screen stood as well. Her waving hand was copied.

“Oh, god. I think that’s us!” Skye threw herself over the back seat, tumbling into the wheel well, and then scrambling over the console into the driver’s seat. 

Ward had thoughtfully left the keys in the ignition, but the seat was too far back, and she couldn’t reach the pedals. The sound vibrations of an engine kicking into a higher year purred through her chest. A quick glance out the window showed an identical white van speeding down the road towards them, Akela in control.

“Oh God! Stupid tall people.” Skye screeched as she grabbed the handgun out of the middle console, which was oh so safe, flicked the safety off, and put a tight three round burst through the windshield of the other car and into Akela’s shoulder. 

The force of the bullets impacting caused the other woman to jerk the wheel, instead of a perfect T-bone, the other van sailed into the back third of the SHIELD vehicle. Both cars went spinning wildly out of control, Akela was sent into the trees on one side and Jemma and Skye ended up being tipped sideways off the embankment. Neither of them was strapped in and they were tossed around the interior like tumble weeds in a stiff breeze. Skye’s abdomen connected painfully with the stick shit. In the back Jemma was tossed into a wall, opening a cut across her forehead that started aggressively leaking blood, and then further into the back of the van. 

The force rattled Skye and she was sitting dazed half hunched over into the passenger seat when the driver’s door was pulled open. Akela, the right side of her dark t-shirt sticking to her skin with dark blood that was lazily pumping from under a hastily applied bandage, stood there in full MiB ‘screw you’ fury. With her good arm she pulled Skye from the driver’s seat, catching her painfully on that fucking stick shift again. Once free of the car, Skye was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. 

A small puff of dust enveloped her, sticking to the small cuts that she had picked up from somewhere. A heavy boot was kicked into the forming bruise on her ribs, driving the air from her lungs. Skye rolled away from the attack, looking up just in time to see a gun being aimed at her head. She threw up a hand and sent a pulse of heavy vibration through the air, sending the gun spinning high into the air. Unthinking, Skye put much more force than needed into the wave, enough the Akela was thrown across the road and into the hood of her own damage car.

Skye stumbled to her feet, her head still reeling from the car crash. The world was playing tilt-a-whorl beneath her feet. Swinging round one way and then the other. With a hand on her head to stabilise the universe, she reached back into the van, grabbed the handgun she had used to shoot Akela and shuffled back onto the road. Trying to convince herself she was prepared to fight the trained SHIELD Agent, she had never been very good at lying to herself. James had told her the story of the Myanmar encounter and on the flight, she had read Akela’s file. She knew just how good she was. 

Skye regained her footing and slowly inched back onto the even surface of the road. Everything was still. No disparate vibrations disturbed the quiet waves of nature that were trying to soothe Skye’s frazzled nerves. She held firm. The other woman was here somewhere.

Pistol held steady in front of herself, she swept the road.

She needn’t have worried. Akela was hanging off the front of her car. A pipe from the damaged engine punctured through her chest. Holding her suspended like a ragdoll, limp and lifeless. A pool of blood was rapidly forming below the still body.

Skye let the hand holding the gun fall to her side, a flick of her thumb putting the safety back on. For a long moment she simply stared into the eyes of the woman she had killed. There had been a few before, and there would be more after, but each one hurt. Each one burnt themselves onto her memory and grief filled a little bit more of her heart, always a little bit more when it was someone who didn’t absolutely deserve to die.

Tearing her eyes away, she tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans and went to check on Simmons. The various bruises from the crash and the fight made themselves known as her mind moved off the possibility of imminent danger. She clamped one arm around her middle to try and settle the throbbing and pulled open the back of the van with the other.

“Jemma?” She climbed into the mostly dark interior.

A groan answered her from behind and slightly under some of the equipment boxes. With her free arm, Skye helped the scientist free herself from the debris.

“You ok?”

Jemma pressed a hand to the sluggishly bleeding cut and looked around, dazed. Clarity, and fear, suddenly returned to her eyes.

“Oh god. Where is she?” Jemma tried to push herself off the floor but didn’t quiet make it, wobbling before falling back down.

Skye shook her head and had to swallow before she could answer. “She’s dead.”

“Oh.” Jemma visibly relaxed at the news. Slumping against the tilted side of the van.

“Yeah.” Skye slid down next to her, the strength deserting her legs. 

“We should probably call someone.” Jemma said, making no move to do so.

“Yeah.” Skye said again, also not moving.

They sat in the half darkness. Jemma’s head bleeding and Skye’s hands shaking. Neither of them made a move to reach for the satellite phone that sat inches from their boots. 

“Jemma?” Skye’s voice was tentative.

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry about Fitz.” Skye rolled her head to look at the other woman as she spoke.

Jemma bit her lip and examined her hands for a long moment. Finally, she exhaled. “I know. Someone I know once said, you can control your own actions as much as you want but other people’s actions will dictate what options you have available to work within. I think if you had had another option you would have taken it. You didn’t take Fitz hostage, you didn’t hold a knife to his neck. You worked within your options.” Jemma slipped sideways across the cool metal, her shoulder coming to rest against Skye’s. “Don’t try and take on other people’s choices.”

James had said something similar soon after Skye had joined Violet and him.  _ You can only work within what you were given. _ The words echoed in her brain in James’ Brooklyn drawl that he only pulled out among friends. They had rung as true then as they did now. 

“Right. Call AC.” Skye gave Jemma warning that she was going to move. Slapping her hands against her thighs to try and back up the words.

Jemma righted herself and pushed off the wall at the same time. Skye needed to call in and check the equipment, she needed to clean herself up and check out Skye for any injury. The way the other woman had been holding herself since re-entering the van had not gone unnoticed. 

Saying that the call to the Team Leader was uncomfortable would be an understatement. He was furious that they hadn’t called in sooner and devastated that Akela hadn’t been able to be saved. At least that was the clear subtext of the conversation. The words were more about injuries and exfil. 

As Skye hung-up having promised they would stay put and wait for the grown ups to arrive, Jemma finished cleaning the drying blood off her face and was trying to see the wound in a mirror. The sight brought a small smile to Skye’s face.

“Here, let me help.” She held out her hand for the alcohol wipes and butterfly stitches. 

After Jemma had reluctantly handed them over, Skye waved her to the back of the van where there was more light to work. For all that it had bled a lot, the cut itself was small, only needing a few pieces of tape to close. It sat just above her eyebrow and probably wouldn’t even scar. Having had her own injury dealt with, Jemma proceeded to hassle Skye into lifting her shirt.

The skin that had been hidden by fabric was mottled black and red. Overlays of shallow and deep bruising from multiple impacts. Jemma carefully ran firm hands around Skye’s ribs, feeling for unusual movement in the bones. Luckily nothing was broken and a few gel cool packs for the bruising and muscle inflammation were quickly applied. 


	3. Chapter 3

With their injuries cared for, Skye and Jemma set about tidying the inside of the van. Without help they wouldn’t be able to get the vehicle out of the ditch, but they could sort out any broken equipment. Skye figured it also served to keep Jemma away from the road and Akela’s body that was still impaled on the other car.

Thirty minutes after calling Coulson, the sound of a car approaching made the two women pause. Skye waved Jemma into the dark interior of the van. Drawing the pistol, she edged out of the back of the vehicle and carefully peered around the open doors.

The rental car that Ward and Coulson had taken into the city was idling empty on the road. The two agents were coming down the small decline, guns drawn and far enough away from each other that they would be able to approach the damaged van from either end, catching any bad guys between them. Skye flicked the safety back on and stepped into view.

“Hey. It’s just us.” She assured them. There had been enough bloodshed today.

Coulson tucked his handgun away but signalled Ward to do a sweep of the area anyway, better to be safe than sorry. 

“Are you both ok?” He asked, coming around the end of the vehicle to join her.

At the sound of her Boss’ voice, Jemma climbed out of the shadowed interior, blinking in the bright sunshine. “Hello sir.”

“Are you both ok?” He asked again.

“Yes.” Skye said.

“Yes sir.” Jemma chirped.

“Good. Doctor Simmons go and help Agent Ward. Skye with me.” 

“Wait, but Jemma shouldn’t...” Skye started but he was already walking away.

“Skye it’s ok. I’ve seen dead bodies before. Go on.” Jemma flapped a hand in the direction that Coulson had gone before leaving herself.

Skye scrambled to follow, slipping a little on the grass that had been torn up by the van careening down the hill. He was inspecting the damage on the side of the van when she caught up with him. She waited silently beside him as he finished his inspection.

“What happened?” He hadn’t given any indication that he was going to talk, his body still facing away from her, but the words didn’t startle he. His tone was soft, enquiring, and she didn’t hear even a hint of accusation in his voice.

Slowly she began to explain, "I found a server. It was being weird...”

= + =

Jemma found Agent Ward on the road in front of the dead body. She appreciated that Skye tried to protect her from the grisly scene but this wasn’t the first body she had had to deal with and there was good money to be had betting it wouldn’t be the last.

The two SHIELD agents stood side by side examining the body, oddly for two such different people they were thinking almost the same thing. That it would have required a lot of force to completely impale someone, through the bones and organs and cartilage that made up the chest cavity. Amador wasn’t a big woman but then neither was Skye. This would take more than brute force, training was needed to produce this result.

Jemma set her case down and flicked it open. Taking biological samples on her own was the first part of her job that didn’t grate since Fitz had been injured. He hated anything that dripped anything other than grease or oil. He still went on about that cat liver. She couldn’t help the huff of exasperation at just the thought of the on-going argument, the only major one they had had since they met.

With a familiar ‘thwip’ sound, Jemma donned her gloves. They were the physical signal to her brain that it was time to work. The sound and feeling allowed her to block out all of the worries and distractions that her mind wouldn’t normally stop from scampering through her head like a herd of field mice. It allowed her to disassociate the body before her from the stories Agent Coulson had been telling on the flight over and do her job properly. Many people found her science to be heartless, but for Jemma, being able to give the last piece of the story back to the people that had loss so much was important. Knowing the truth was important.

Collecting the samples was quick and easy. Something she had done a thousand times. A little bit of everything quickly got sealed into jars and bags, her tiny neat cursive curling its way across each label, and then all of it was tucked securely into her case to be analysed back on the Bus. 

While she worked, Ward had backed the car to the end of the road. attached a tow rope to the back, and pulled the van back onto the road.

“Agent Ward, sir?” Jemma called as she clicked her case closed, samples safely stowed.

“Yes?” His answer sounded distracted and half muffled from where he was riffling through the trunk of the car.

“I’m going to need some help getting her free.”

= + =

Agent Coulson listened silently as the woman he had brought onto his team, into SHIELD, told him how she had accidentally killed someone he had worked with for years, someone he thought was dead. It was obvious to everyone that whatever else had happened, Akela had gone bad. That didn’t mean he wasn’t warring with himself to not blame Skye for her death. Logically, he knew that Skye was only protecting herself and Jemma, what she had done was understandable and if he believed her, a mistake. But his heart, his too loyal heart, was raging that the person in front of him was responsible for taking one of his people away from him.

Eventually the hacker ran out of words. Standing silent, waiting for judgment to fall upon her. 

“I’m sorry Skye. Until I’ve had a chance to talk to Simmons and she has had a chance to go over the scene and body, I’m going to have to arrest you.” He pulled the set of zip-ties he had hoped to use on Akela from his pocket.

Without saying anything or looking up from her boots, she held her hands out in front of her, wrists together. He slipped the plastic bands around her hands and made sure they were tight enough that she couldn’t slip from them, but not so tight that he would cut off circulation. Placing a hand on her shoulder he led the subdued woman back onto the road and into the back of the car.

= + =

Freya quietly pinged her comm as Skye was ushered into the back of the car. It was the AI’s version of a quiet ‘by the way I’m here and want your attention but you are distracted had haven’t noticed me’ cough. Once Coulson had closed the door and walked away, she hummed to show Freya had her attention, she didn’t particularly want to be seen speaking to herself.

“James would like to speak to you.” Freya spoke quietly.

That always puzzled Skye, why would Freya feel the need to be quiet, no one else could hear her? The hacker knew she was focusing on the wrong thing, but out the window she was watching as Agents Coulson and Ward stood on each side of Akela’s body, gloved up and de-skewering the ex-agent. The blood that trickled from the gaping wound was bright red in the sunlight and Skye was just grateful that she couldn’t hear the sound of flesh tearing and blood acting as suction on the metal as they moved her, although her mind was doing a fabulous job imagining it. Jemma was in front of them, guiding the careful movements of the two men.

“Yeah, ok.” She looked at where her hands were bound in her lap, allowing her hair to fall forward and obscure her face.

“How ya goin’ doll?” James’ scratchy voice echoed a little over the comms, he always put his mouth too close to the microphone at the beginning of a conversation, as if forgetting how sensitive the equipment was. As they spoke, he would pull back and it would be like he was there in the car with her.

“Ok, I guess.” She murmured, making sure her lips were hidden.

“Really?” His disbelief was so clear that she could imagine the look on his face. An eyebrow raised almost to his hairline and his lips quirked as he tried to hold in a laugh at the terrible lie she had tried to get past him.

“No. Not really. What happens if Coulson isn’t on the level? What if he disappears me? SHIELD did it to Vi, there’s nothing stopping them doing it to me too.” She struggled to keep her voice down, not having realised what the hot ball of fear and dread in her gut had been trying to tell her.

“They knew who Violet was sweetheart. They knew how to contain her. They don’t know about you.” He tried to talk her down.

It was working.

“And you got May on your side, right? She’ll be right there if you need to make a quick escape.”

Before she had a chance to answer, the driver’s door was opened. Ward climbed in and started the car, all without speaking to or looking at her. She could feel the cold reproach rolling off him. The drive back to the Bus was done without a sound. Ward keeping his eyes trained strictly on the road. Skye listening to James continue to talk in her ear, telling her about Danny Cage’s latest misadventures in toddlerhood. 

The quiet comfort of having his voice wash over her helped her gather her thoughts and steal herself for whatever was going to come. Her alliance with May was too new, too tentative to really be relied on for help. If it came down to it, she wasn’t sure that May would stand by her. Jemma had been friendly and could have been a friend but she had hurt Fitz and there was still a bruise on that relationship. Ward didn’t like her, he didn’t like that Coulson had invited her onto the team and he didn’t think she had what it took to be a SHIELD agent and resented being asked to trainer her. 

Coulson was the true wildcard in all of this. He was friends with the Director and high enough that there was a good chance he was dirty. No one got that high in a covert spy agency without being willing to do everything and anything to get their job done. The few times they had managed to get access to the more secure parts of SHIELD’s networks, there had been almost nothing on the man, just a few mentions in redacted mission reports and his signature on a lot of paperwork. His work was either so classified that they didn’t even digitise his record, unlikely, or he was the most boring spy in history.

Having met him, Skye didn’t think either was true. But she didn’t know what was. The bland middle-aged man with kind eyes didn’t seem the sort to disappear someone, but he had black bagged her on their first meeting. 

As many times as she ran it through her head, she couldn’t come to a decision about what he was likely to do, there was just too much she didn’t know about him.

The car pulled to a rolling stop at the foot of the ramp. The van already settling into place on the divots that secured it during flight. In the short seconds she was alone in the car as Ward got out and circled it to her door she spoke, interrupting James. “If I go dark, call the lighthouse.”


	4. Chapter 4

Skye was back in the hard, moulded plastic chair in the interrogation room. It wasn’t as fun this time. Ward had exchanged the zip tie for for-real metal handcuffs and locked her to the bar moulded into the table. To add insult to injury, they were unpickable. Well, if she needed to a little concentrated directional vibration would have her free in a jiffy, but it was the principle of the thing. Hadn’t she built any level of trust with them? And she hadn’t run after the fight, she had stayed and helped Jemma. She had answered the questions they had asked as much as she could. 

While Ward had been fiddling with the cuffs, a calculatedly neutral expression plastered onto his face, Coulson had stood in the doorway. He had been harder to read than the comically open specialist. The lightly clasped hands and bland nothing on his face suggested indifference, the crinkle of tension between his eyebrows showed his worry. What the senior agent was worried about she had no idea. It could have been her; it could have been Akela; it could have been what he was going to have for lunch for all she knew.

By her internal clock, the two men had left, making sure the door was locked behind them, over an hour ago. For most of that time James and she had been playing their version of twenty questions. It was something they all did to pass the time when one of them couldn’t talk openly. Whoever couldn’t talk thought of an object, or person, or place and the other person asked yes/no questions. One hum was no, two was yes. Freya interpreted the small vibration, and unless someone was in the room and standing right next to her, they wouldn’t be able tell that she was doing something, let alone  _ what  _ she was doing.

He had already guessed that she was thinking of a person of the male persuasion who was alive. He was currently trying to guess their job. She was totally going to win this round but she wished him luck all the same.

= + =

Coulson sat at his desk and watched his computer monitor. He had finished the initial incident report quickly and had it filed with HQ soon after Melinda had them back in the air. Now with nothing to do for a little while he was filling his time by watching the enigma of a hacker he had secured in the interrogation room. 

After the first time he had had her in that room, Phil had thought he had a good handle on who she was. What her motivations and background were. Normally he could read everyone, but the best trained operatives, minutes after meeting them. He could tell you his barista’s college major, minor, and electives after a thirty second conversation. So, why was this twenty-something anarchist hacktivist baffling him.

Within hours Skye had been well on her way to being brand new BFFs with the team’s science division. Everything he had been seeing supported his initial assessment of her. Until she had made the call to put Fitz’s life on the line in a gamble without the apparent need to think about it. 

And then she had managed to win Melinda to her cause.

The fight against Akela was the final straw in forcing him to admit he had been very wrong about her. He didn’t know what to do about that. Had he pushed too hard to get back into the field? Were his skills compromised? If his ability to do his job and ensure the safety of his people was lacking, what could he do? Fury would never agree to pull him, and he couldn’t turn to the one other person he normally would for support. They still probably thought he was dead and until they got his message and contacted him it was too risky for him to reach out again.

So, instead, he sat alone at his desk and watched Skye sitting alone and motionless in the interrogation room.

= + =

Jemma was over the moon to be back in the lab, Fitz at her side. It had been a foreign and unwelcome experience to be out in the field without him beside her chattering away. 

After getting back to the Bus, Agent Coulson had asked her a few questions about the crash and ensuing fight, but she hadn’t been able to tell him much. Just a little about the accident, then things got a little fuzzy until Skye had been cleaning up the cut on her head. He had seemed mostly satisfied with her answers and when the car had appeared, he had accompanied Ward and Skye upstairs. They hadn’t seen anyone since, and all they had heard from the rest of the team had been Agent May telling everyone to get ready for take-off.

“J..Jemma.” Fitz called her attention away from the blood sample she had been examining through her favourite microscope. 

The stuttered single word in place of what would normally be a torrent of information tore at her. Before she could face him she had to take a deep breath and clear some of the grief from her face. By the time she turned around, she had conjured a bright smile and was able to lightly step across the room to his side without him seeing anything she didn’t want him to.

“Yes Fitz.”

“The, um. The...” The engineer circled a hand in front of his face and then made the same gesture around Akela’s face. “Not you. Me.” The look in his eye begged her to understand. 

“There is something mechanical? Not biological?” She hazarded a guess.

“Yes, that.” He pulled up the imaging he had taken to show her.

The metal plates and wires that snaked under the skin of the right side of the ex-agent's face stood out. Bright white pieces of engineering were sat like shattered glass against the dull grey and black of the x-ray. Whatever had been implanted had been catastrophically damaged, probably during the fight.

“That’s different.” Jemma leant in, trying to get a better look. “Have you run a layering program for the x-rays, Cat-scan, and MRI?” She moved away from the screens on the back wall and started typing into Fitz’s workstation. 

The holotable lit up and a virtual model of the dead agent flickered into existence. The engineer quickly manipulated the display to bring one side of the Akela’s skull into technicolour focus. A few more waves of his fingers had the image pull apart, showing layers of skin, muscle, bone, and tech. Working in tandem they were able to put the shattered tech back together.

“Oh, dear.” Jemma stared at the resulting diagram with horror. She had to let Agent Coulson know. 

= + =

May had quickly retreated to the cockpit when the rest of the team had returned to the Bus. She and Fitz had listened to the radio chatter while the other four had been gone. The attack by Akela hadn’t surprised May, it was exactly what she would have expected a SHIELD agent to do, ex or not, even if it wasn’t what she herself would have done. Too obvious. The quick and brutal end to the fight had surprised her, even though a part of her said she shouldn’t have been. She believed Skye’s story, but the reality of the younger woman’s skills, natural and not, was stunning.

She may know more about the hacker’s background than anyone else on the Bus but she had still underestimated her. It wouldn’t happen again. If Coulson decided to keep Skye around, the first thing Melinda was going to do was set up a sparring session, she what she was actually dealing with.

With a clear direction forward, she was able to banish the issue from her mind and return to the quiet calm that being in control of an aircraft always brought.

= + =

Phil was staring at the form in front of him, not really seeing the words printed on the page. His mind was blank. He had run through all of the possibilities and still couldn’t decide which was more likely. Which was the better course of action. The indecision was new to him. The only other time he had ever felt this conflicted on a decision was the last time he had asked someone on a date. And yes, that had turned out well for him, but a working relationship had been the only thing on the line then. Now his whole team was relying on him to make sure he hadn’t let a fox into the hen house and one of their own had paid the price. 

A soft knock at the door broke the stillness that he had been trying to absorb without much success.

“Come in Agent Simmons.” He called, 99% certain it was the biochemist at the door. Fitz was the only other one whose knock it could be, but the engineer wasn’t likely to venture out of the lab anytime soon, not when his ability to communicate was so compromised.

“Agent Coulson, sir.” He had been right, it was Agent Simmons. She came into the room carefully, making the sure door was completely shut before coming in. If she had been carrying a sheaf of papers instead of her tablet, he would be concerned about the legibility of anything on them she was gripping it so hard.

“Take a seat. What’s going on?” He kept his voice soft but even. A single thread of steel under the silk, it was a tone of voice he had cultivated for years on skittish Junior Agents and nervous Scientists. An ounce of command so well hidden they didn’t even realise it was there.

“I have the report of my initial findings.” She paused to take a deep breath. “A single hard push sent Ms Amadour onto the wreckage. I’m not sure how Skye was able to manage it, but I would take a great deal of force.” 

“Thank you for the update.” He said when she finished.

“Thats, um. That’s not all sir.” She paused again. 

Whatever she was nervous about, it wasn’t the suggestion that what had happened had been purposeful on Skye’s part.

“Ms Amadour had an implant.” The tablet was held up to show him a slowly rotating, 3d model of some sort of prosthetic eye. “It had been severely damaged so the exact specifications and functions of the implant are unclear at the moment. Excising and reconstructing the eye would allow us to maybe understand it a little better.” Simmons went off on a technical tangent that he got the gist of but wasn’t salient.

“Agent Simmons.” A little more of the steel crept into his voice, bringing her back to the here and now.

“Sorry. I can’t say for certain, but I think it was a deadman’s switch. There were traces of explosives under the skin. When she died, they hit it to try and obscure what it was for.” The sadness in the woman’s eyes was heartbreaking.

He had never liked having to expose the cruel underbelly to those people that still saw the best in people, but she was an Agent of SHIELD and couldn’t afford to see the world with rose coloured glasses.

“Is there a record of this technology on the servers?” He asked, expecting the answer to be yes.

“No.”

To find a tech so well developed and not have come across even a hint of it before was worrying. Especially so close after Centipede in LA.

“Thank you. If you find anything else please let me know.” It was time to talk to Skye.


	5. Chapter 5

James was grumbling in her ear just as the door swung open without warning. He hadn’t been able to guess who she had been thinking of, which meant he owed her dinner next time they saw each other. She also knew that trying to figure out who it was, was going to annoy him until she was able to tell him. Perfect payback for mispronouncing gravitonium when she hadn’t been able to do anything about it.

Glancing quickly at the opening door and then away again. Better not to seem to be concerned about how long they had left her here alone. It would have been too easy and opening. Agent Coulson was coming in, alone. A bottle of water in one hand and one of the standard issue SHIELD tablets in the other. Time for the fun to begin.

He took his seat and passed the water to her. Watching silent as she fiddled with the bottle without opening it. Neither of them were willing to start. It was a game of chicken with her life. She kept her eyes on the bottle, picking at the label and shredding the bits she tore off until they were little more than confetti littering the tabletop.

He started with a sign. “Skye. Tell me what happened.” 

He sounded understanding, and to anyone else he would be selling the whole act. But her senses were lighting up with his tension and a smidge of judgement, every cell in his body was vibrating with the storm of feelings he was swirling with. It was setting her hackles up and she shrunk further into her seat. There was nothing she could say that he would believe and she didn’t trust that he hadn’t dosed the water. It was a stalemate. Both of them wanting to trust the other, but unable to. The secrets between them keeping them silent.

“You and Jemma were in the van.” He started for her, using Jemma’s first name to make the conversation less formal. Humanise the whole thing. When she didn’t take over, he kept talking. “Jemma said you found a signal and was able to crack into it. Can you tell me how?”

“I hacked it.” She said sarcastically. It wasn’t helpful. She knew that even before the words slipped from her mouth, but his vibrations was very off-putting.

A muscle in his cheek twitched, he was suppressing a smile.

Sliding back up the seat to sit properly she kept going, she owed him that much. “I found an encrypted server. It was a video feed. Of the van. With my computer I can show you exactly what I did to get into it if you are actually that interested.” That was slightly better.

He nodded like she was just confirming something he already knew. He had already talked to Jemma.

“Akela was going to ram us. I got into the driver’s seat, but it was set for Ward and I couldn’t reach the pedals. So I shot her. She lost control but still hit us. Sent us over the embankment.” She rolled the water bottle between her hands, watching it rather than him. 

“You shot her three times.” He added.

Glancing up, he was watching her carefully. Not sure what he was looking for, regret maybe? Or guilt, she shrugged. 

“Sounds right. Jemma was knocked out. I had the breath knocked out of me, hit the stick shift on the way over. Then she was there. At the car door, pulling me out, kicking me. I kicked back. Was able to force her back, get to my feet.” She was about to start lying through her teeth and if he didn’t believe her, she was screwed.

In her ear, James spoke. “ _ Careful.” _ It wasn’t particularly helpful, but she took a moment to steady her thoughts. To think about what she wanted to say. Just knowing he was listening in, and probably ready to mount a rescue the second things went south, was enough.

“We fought.” True enough. “I kicked her.” Also true. “Where I had shot her. She fell back onto the car.” Mostly lies. “I don’t really know how. Suddenly she was just still.” All lies.

Silently, he watched her. Waiting to see if she would say anything else. It was conceivable that in the heat of the moment she really didn’t know what had happened. But just kicking Akela wouldn’t have been enough to send her that far onto the spike of metal they had found her on. She knew he knew if he waited long enough, she might start talking again. If she was who she said she was.

She glanced up from the water bottle and then away again.

He wasn’t going to get anything else from her, but he didn’t believe that she had told the whole story.

“Okay Skye. I’ll be back later.” He was half way out the door before she spoke.

“You’re just going to leave me here?”

“If you aren’t going to tell me the truth then yes.” He turned back to her and waited. When she didn’t say anything, he spoke again. “Yes, I’m going to leave you here.” He left.

May and Ward were in the command centre watching the interrogation room’s camera.

“Do you believe her?” He asked them both as he joined them watching the hacker spin the water bottle around and around on the table. He thought it was interesting that she still hadn’t opened it. After the shock of the accident and the adrenaline of the fight, plus the more than an hour in the interrogation room, she should have cracked it the moment he handed it over.

“No.” Ward answered first. The word hard, a condemnation all on it’s own.

“May?” He turned to his old friend when she stayed silent.

Eventually she spoke, turning to watch his expression as she did. “I think she is telling some of the truth.” 

He nodded in agreement, that was his read on it as well. “In an hour or so take some food in to her.”

“Sir.” Ward agreed, voice flat.

“Not you. May.”

That got a reaction from the young agent. Surprise quickly flitted to irritation and then smoothed away into disinterest.

May glowered at him but didn’t dispute the order. She knew that he had picked up on something between the two women.

Exactly 60 minutes later, May had slapped a peanut butter sandwich together and went to try and get something out of Skye. She didn’t hold out much hope. May had an idea of what had happened on that road. Her powers were the only thing that made sense. But the suggestion of this girl hadn’t even pinged on their radar in the years since she had got her powers. That took skill and care about what she did or said that wasn’t going to be shaken by a friendly-ish face and a sandwich.

The shackled woman looked up at the sound of the door opening. Her eyes narrowed when May closed the door without anyone else coming in. Skye had been expecting Ward to be sent next, her S.O. to appeal to her sense of being a part of something. Or even the attractive young man to turn her head. Then Jemma as a friend, a kind face that had recently shared a traumatic experience. The only person who would have been more surprising than the pilot would have been Fitz. Someone who was having trouble being in the same room as her since he re-joined the team, even if Jemma assured her he didn’t blame her.

“Here.” May slid the plate across the table and sat in the chair across from Skye.

“Thanks.” Skye muttered, but left the sad sandwich where it had come to a stop in front of her. She trusted May enough to eat something from her, but knew they were being watched and wasn’t willing to point out the extent of their relationship if she didn’t have to. Eating an unpackaged sandwich from May when she had refused to drink the sealed water from Coulson would have been a big red flag.

Having ripped all of the paper off the bottle, Skye moved on to the edge of the bread. Tearing the crust off one side and picking it apart. Crumbs growing in a steady pile under her hands.

May pulled the sandwich back out of her reach, glaring at the crumbs, took a bite and passed it back. Skye accepted it this time. 

“I’m not going to tell you anything that I haven’t already told Coulson.” Skye eventually grumbled, once she had eaten half the sandwich.

May just nodded.

Skye started in on the second half.

An hour after she had entered, May left. Neither of them had said a word in 45 minutes.

“That was informative.” Ward drawled from his place leaning against the wall across from the interrogation room’s door.

May walked past him. Stalking through the lounge and then into the cockpit. She locked the door behind her and settled in the pilot’s seat. She had had a good idea of what had happened before going in there. Now she was certain. Skye had used her powers and killed the other woman. The only thing that was unclear was whether it had been intentional.

= + =

Coulson came to collect her just before the plane started tilting down as it came in to land. With a flick of his wrist, he unlocked one of her cuffs unthreaded it from the table and clicked it back around her wrist. His only concession was an apologetic frown. It wasn’t comforting.

James trying to guess her next person was the only thing that kept her from bitching at the Agent. Coulson took her silence in stride, not knowing her well enough to know it was unusual for her. James on the other hand was one question away from guessing she was thinking Machiavelli and she would lose the ground she had won earlier. She internally smirked, he couldn't win if she couldn’t play.

The large plane touched down lightly. Losing speed quickly, it rolled to a stop outside a large hanger. Coulson led Skye blinking into the bright light of midday. The tarmac was filled with people hustling in every direction. It was uniforms as far as the eye could see. A sign over one of the hangers told her they were at Anacostia-Bolling, a joint base that she knew was close to the heart of DC.

Skye was helped into the back of the van before she could see anything else. She was alone, May driving and Coulson in the passenger seat. None of them spoke as May threaded her way through the thick DC traffic. The air inside the vehicle was oppressive. Each of them were holding secrets close to their chests, unwilling or unable to let go enough to trust each other. It reminded her of her first meeting with Vi and James. At least the her versus them feeling. Unfortunately unlike Vi and James, May and Coulson weren’t on the same page. Not anymore, thanks to her.

Sideways glance and straight out stares followed the trio as the two Senior Agents, both of them legends in their own rights, led an unknown woman through the heart of one of SHIELD largest installations. Whispers erupted following them just before they passed out of earshot. Skye grit her teeth at the attention. The stares and whispers and general unease was causing whirlpools and eddies through the vibrations of the rooms and corridors they marched down.

They made their way through the main corridor of the building, each time Coulson beeped them through a door the crowd lessened. He let them into a small interrogation room deep in the building, they hadn’t passed anyone in that last hallway.

Skye watched the door click shut behind her. If they decided to disappear her, she would just be gone. Her link to Freya, and the world, was gone. The single short beep sounded as they moved into the last hallway, whatever it was made of, or shielded with was enough that nothing was getting through it. Finally, she was as alone as they thought she had been earlier. May had entered the room with her, but only to remove her cuffs. There was nothing in the room with her. No table, no chairs. There wasn’t even a one way mirror that they could be watching her through. The lack of visible surveillance didn’t mean they weren’t watching though.

She wedged herself into the corner. Legs pulled up and arms wrapped around her knees, she rested her chin on her arms and watched the door. To pass the time, she mentally ran through the coding that would allow her to get behind Stark’s latest firewall. It was a game a lot of hackers played with the Billionaire superhero. He put his latest, commercial never the more interesting private stuff, security software around Stark Industries Servers. Getting behind it was the holy grail of black hat hacking. 

Skye had done it twice. She only knew of one other hacker who could claim the same. In the scramble that had been the last six months she hadn’t had time to try again, but neither had Stark been updating it as often. 

Both of them had more important things on their mind.

She fell asleep waiting for something to happen. Without external light, or even a watch, she didn’t know how long she had been out when she eventually blinked herself awake. Soon after she woke up, a blank faced agent she didn’t recognise silently dropped off two bottles of water and a sandwich. She hadn’t drunk since the van or eaten since interrogation. A dehydration headache was pounding behind her eyes, but if she hadn’t trusted something from Coulson, she definitely wasn’t going to trust anything from SHIELD Drone #3.

The plate and bottle sat in the exact centre of the room and mocked her. The second time the door opened, she recognised the man that stepped through the thick door. The imposing stature, eyepatch, and over use of leather that swept through the door could only be Director Fury. She wasn’t sure what it meant that he was the one coming to see her.

A different SHIELD Drone followed him in. She put a single chair next to the untouched food and got the hell out of the room as fast as she could without looking like she was running away from her Boss’ Boss’ Boss’ Boss. In any other circumstance, Skye would be laughing at the barely contained terror of the agent. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was laugh.

She had never expected to be in a room with this man. Let alone be alone in a room with him, when she couldn’t reach James or Vi. On his own, she could take him. Getting past the rest of the agency once she had taken out its head was the more difficult enterprise.

Fury flipped out his coat and sat. Taking longer than anyone in the history of ever, to get comfortable in his seat. Then he set to studying her with his one eye. The rumbling of her stomach was the only sound in the room. Reaching out with her powers she could feel the slightest nerves vibrating off him. He was just as unsure of her, as she was of him. Her gift didn’t tell her why he was nervous, mores the pity.

He made the first move. Internally, she was smirking smugly with petty victory. Without taking his eye off her, he leant down, picked up the sandwich and bit into it.

Skye narrowed her eyes at him. He was trying to show that they could be trusted. They wouldn’t spike her food. She wasn’t convinced. She had trusted the move from May, there was a level of relationship there already. Fury didn’t have that, he could easily have given himself the antidote for any number of things was just as easy as spiking her food. 

“You weren’t what I was expecting from Coulson’s pet hacker.” His voice was a low rumble. A stampede that was racing towards her that she would never be able to out run. He continued when she made no move to respond. “Might have been short sighted of me, he has always brought in … exceptional people. Agent Amador’s death has been ruled self-defence.”

She didn’t react to the implied praise. Skye knew her worth, it was hard fought knowledge after years of neglect and abuse in the foster system, but she knew it to the core of her being.

He dusted imaginary crumbs from his hands. Delaying whatever he was going to say next. His vibrations were stronger. They weren’t nerved anymore, they were annoyance. She guessed that he was annoyed that she hadn’t risen to any of his bait, or maybe that she hadn’t started babbling in relief that they believed her about Amador. It didn’t really matter.

A bright silver circle appeared in his hand from within the depths of his jacket. He flipped it finger over finger, running it up and down his hand. The light catching and flicking off the high polish. With dawning horror she recognised the little device. She had only read about them. SHIELD’s version of an electronic tracking device, but so much more. At its lowest setting it would track every keystroke she typed, data mine every device she came into contact with. They would be able to see who she was meeting, how long they were together, and how often they met. Nothing in her life would be private. On its highest setting, it would shut down any piece of technology she tried to use.

With a bit of time, and the bracelet set to the lowest level, she would be able to crack it. But how much would she give away while doing that? How many opportunities would she miss to find information on Violet?

“You know what this is, I’d really like to know how, but that’s good. You have a choice.” He stopped playing with it. Holding it still and out towards her, making sure he and the electronic shackle had all of her attention. “The bracelet. Or a room very much like this one, only smaller.”

Glaring at him, she pushed off the floor. “Why?”

“Why what?” He smirked at finally getting a reaction.

“If you believe me, then why aren’t I just free to go.” The words were an accusation and an admonishment.

“Because I can.” When she continued to glare at him, he relented. “Because your dangerous, and I don’t like dangerous people running around without oversight.”

That at least was true. She didn’t like it, but she believed him.

She didn’t have a choice. She had the illusion of choice and he knew it. She held out her wrist. The band closed around her limb with a metallic snick and an electronic beep. His vibrations were deeply satisfied, they purred like a content cat in a direct spot of sunlight. The bracelet gave off a faint hum that to anyone else would have been un-noticeable, she could feel it in her chest. It was already tossing her stomach unpleasantly.

“You’re free to go.” He swept out of the room, leaving her standing in the grey box. His too long coat flying behind him, turning him into an overgrown bat. Active in the shadows and surviving by sucking the life blood from anything that caught his fancy.


	6. Chapter 6

May came to collect her soon after Fury vacated the room. Skye desperately wanted to ask what setting her newest accessory was on, but the omnipresent, unseen surveillance kept her quiet. Following May down the hall, she pressed against the subdermal implant, turning it off manually. She had no way of knowing if the bracelet would pick up the transmissions, it wouldn’t get through her encryption, she knew that, but they might be able to tell it was there which put them all in danger.

Oddly it was May who broke the quiet once they got to a wider hallway. Under the rush and rustle of people getting on with the business of hiding things from the world, May spoke. “Going off base for lunch.” Short and sweet. Neither adjective could normally be used to describe anything the older woman did, but it fit and it made Skye grin. Mentally. She wasn’t letting that expression out in the middle of SHIELD, they would add demented to go with her security risk label.

The last rays of sunlight were stretching long fingers over the horizon, unwilling to give up the day’s hold on the city just yet. The two women hustled into a dark blue sedan that Skye suspected wasn’t a motor pool vehicle.

“This is nice.” She ran an appreciative hand over the creamy leather upholstery.

May ignored her.

May wedged the car in between two SUVs that had left more than a two foot gap, and they were away. Well, they were inching their way through DC rush hour, but they were out of SHIELD. The SHIELD building was right on the edge of DC itself and with a few quick maneuvers, they were speeding along a slightly less congested highway. Skye had no idea where they were going, she had never been to DC and didn’t know enough about the city’s geography to make a guess. All she knew was that they were heading South-West. The sun having finally set just over her right shoulder.

They pulled off the raised roadway quicker than Skye thought they would, slipping down and under, they wove through residential streets until May stole a parking spot from an irate looking hedge fund manager to stop in front of an anonymous glass office building.

Skye followed May out of the car on the power of the older woman’s glare alone. Walking passed all of the people with their suits and briefcases, she pulled the sleeve of her ratty plaid shirt down to cover the bracelet. It didn’t match the rest of her clothes and would draw attention. In her line of work, attention was deadly, or got you disappeared as she had come too close to today for comfort. 

May moved through the crowd as if it was her natural habitat. Somehow making her tactical suit blend in with the D&G that surrounded them. They were heading to a restaurant on the corner of the building, an off white canopy with faded blue writing picked out ‘Uncle Joe’s Mexican from Scratch’. The outside seating area was about three quarters full of people taking advantage of what would probably be one of the last nice days before autumn really set in. May avoided the outside area, pushing into the quieter, dim interior. 

A hostess a year or two younger than Skye looked up at their entry.

“Garner Party.” May told her before she could ask.

Garner? Andrew Garner? May’s ex? Was May trying to stealth ambush her with a shrink?

“Right this way. The other party is already here.” On sure feet, she darted between tables and chairs.

Skye expected to come around one of the many dividing screens to see the kind, open face of May’s ex-husband. Having only seen him in pictures when they were originally considering recruiting May, it would be interesting to actually meet the man. Everything on paper suggested he was a good guy.

Rounding the last divider in the place, putting them in the very back of the restaurant, away from every other group, and with a fire door just behind them, the face waiting for them wasn’t May’s ex-husband, it was Skye’s current husband.

“Ja.. What?” Skye backpedaled. What was he doing here? How did May know about him?

“Doll, it’s ok. Freya called her when she couldn’t contact you.” James had risen from his seat when they first appeared. His ma taught him manners and he didn’t care how outdated they were now, he fully believed she would come back from the dead to lambast him if he let them slip and while he would love to see his ma again, it wouldn’t be worth interrupting her well earned afterlife for.

Skye dropped into one of the free seats right next to his and he followed her down, settling back into his own place.

“A beer for both of us please.” He ordered while she tried to gather herself.

“Sure.” The hostess chirped.

When Skye was able to start paying attention to the world around her again, they were alone. “Where did she go?”

It wasn’t strange that she hadn’t noticed May leaving, the woman was a Master spy, she just didn’t know why she had left.

James correctly assumed she meant May and not the hostess. “She’s having dinner at the bar.” He placed his flesh hand over one of hers. “The better question is, are you ok?” A finger flicked the metal band, but she knew he was asking about more than that, he was asking about everything that had happened in the last 36 hours.

Shrugging as she tried to put her scrambled thoughts and feelings into a coherent order, she let go of her tight control of her powers, letting the vibrations of the restaurant come to her, making sure they were safe. She knew James was doing the same, he had chosen the seat with the best sightlines. Each of them protecting the other as best as they could. It was a routine they had perfected over months and years.

An eyebrow went up at the shrug, it said so many things. Starting with come off it, continuing with you can always talk to me, and finishing with but if you don’t want to that’s ok. It was a very expressive eyebrow. Or maybe she just knew him well enough to practically read his mind.

“I’m ok with what happened with Akela. I didn’t want to hurt her, but she wouldn’t have stopped. She could’a gone after  _ Jemma _ .” She started carefully, gaining confidence in what she was saying as she said it. She always processed better when she could talk. Sometimes she didn’t even realise she felt a particular way until she had to put it into words. He understood that and was always willing to be her sounding board.

A waitress interrupted when she paused. “Two beers. Are you ready to order?” She set their drinks in front of them and whipped a dog eared notepad out of her short apron.

They broke apart and picked up the menus they hadn’t even glanced at yet. 

James spoke up first. “The ribs and tamales for me.”

Skye shot him a hopeful look which he caught and laughed at. “Yes you can have some.” Her grin was more teeth then she normally showed.

“Chicken Fajitas, for two.” James ate enough for two, making eating out difficult. Actually, all three of them did. They each burnt through more food than the average human, which made sense when you thought about it, none of them were exactly average, at least not any more. She was ready for a big meal after only a sandwich in she wasn’t sure how long.

They couldn’t order enough food to satisfy them without getting odd looks from serving staff. They could never understand where they put it all and if they were going to be staying in the area for a while, it drew too much attention. “And the guacamole and queso combo.” Today they didn’t care. The likelihood of them ever coming back here was zero. And even if they did come back, Skye was about ready to gnaw the table legs.

“Desert?” He asked her.

“Do we have time?” Skye was eyeing the chocolate pinata with interest. At his nod she ordered the desert.

When James added an order of the Sopapillas for himself, the waitresses eye twitched. Neither of them were large, and their plate sizes weren’t small. With a mental sigh she made a note to get some containers ready for leftovers. At least the tip would be big.

She hurried away to put their order in. They weren’t going to be a quick in and out table like she had hoped with only two of them at a table for five.

James’ smile was soft, the shadow of the Depression cast a long shadow and he always enjoyed seeing someone he loved with enough food. Too many of them had gone without in his childhood, his mother skipping dinner when Da lost a shift to drink and she wanted to make sure Bucky and his three sisters had enough, Steve’s ma having to pick between food and medicine. Seeing Skye not having to make those decisions warmed his heart. Particularly as the ghost of who she had been when they first met lingered.

“Things with the team are iffy. I trust May, and Jemma seems to have accepted me, and is too honest for her own good, she would be able to hide any distrust if she tried. I’m not sure about Fitz. I don’t think he likes me, but he doesn’t hold what happened against me. I don’t think he likes sharing Jemma though.” She had passed most of this on to him before, it wasn’t anything they hadn’t expected from the HR files she had absconded with long before they decided to send her in to SHIELD. She didn’t bother going over her concerns about Ward again, he was the known quantity on the team. Untrustworthy. 

There was one member of the team that she hadn’t addressed, and he didn’t miss the omission.

Their first course arrived before he could bring it up though. By the time the waitress had bustled off again, the moment had passed. Between bites of food, James filled her in on his side of the mess in Malta, and Skye told him bits and pieces about her latest disaster. It wasn’t the most usual dinner conversation but for them it was normal. There was an ease to the conversation that Skye would never get with the team. Under it’s easy pressure, she felt her muscles loosen and tension she hadn’t realised she was holding leak away.

Once the appetisers were cleared away and the mains had been brought out, he tentatively returned the topic to Coulson. He needed to know what her feelings on her team leader were. If they could trust him not to get her killed.

“What about Coulson? You seemed to like him when they first picked you up.” He watched the emotions flick across her face, a flip book of everything she had to hide from the rest of the world.

“I… I don’t know.” Her words were steeped in frustration. She could read any one in seconds, foster care and then living on the streets had forced her to develop a finely tuned gut feeling about people. She just wasn’t sure if she could trust it this time. “I want to trust him. My knee jerk reaction would be that I do trust him. But you know his history. Who he trained with. And then today, he treated me as a criminal, he let them shackle me!” She shook the bracelet in anger. The metal glinting coldly in the warm light. It was the first time she had mentioned the device since they had arrived. He knew she had to already be chafing under the restriction. Nearly her whole life was in the digital world, being restricted from accessing it or spied on if she did had to grate.

Letting the issue lie, he changed the topic. “You have to tell me. What was the answer?!”

She knew what he was talking about right away, a shit-eating grin instantly spread across her face. “Randolph.”

“Cheat! He’s not famous!” It was a rule they had instigated early on in the game after James had used his highschool maths teacher.

“He is literally in the history books!” She knew she had him. His name was in the books but he wasn’t, it was a legal play.

With his eyes narrowed in thought, she could see why he had been earning a reputation in the espionage community before Violet had gotten him free. With a grunt he conceded that she had won. Dinner was on him.

After clearing the table, to the poorly hidden shock of their waitress, they wandered out into the cooling night. Hand in hand with May shadowing them, there was a park one block over that they strolled to. Choosing a seat at an outdoor cafe, they waved May over. There were things the three of them needed to discuss and Skye was ready for an icecream sundae from the small kiosk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://unclejulios.com/menu/


End file.
